Archive March 2013

There is a digital and burgeoning offline movement towards working together and sharing resources, rather than doing it all and owning it all and three (3) of the major movements in this new non-ownership meme are known as collaboration, co creation and the sharing economy.

In this week’s on-air discussion David Dowsett of ABC radio Wide Bay and I take a look at how to have “stuff” without owning it, or how to get more use and profit out of “stuff’ you own but aren’t using to its full capacity

It is not a communist or hippie throwback, but rather a twist on doing, having, renting and borrowing.

We took a quick tour through some websites and apps that collaboratively design t-shirts, jewellery, cars, solve scientific conundrums, seek funding for inventions, borrow homes, find local people to guide you around tourist destinations, short-term usage of people’s cars, borrow their dogs, rent space in their garages and homes and many other things you might need, but don’t want to own.

This collaborative mindset is also spreading itself into boardroom thinking by not only influencing resource ownership, but also in opening the possibility to co-creating products, services and business activities.

The answer is not much, but a trip to the Gold Coast is never complete without a chat to Nicole Dyer on ABC FM and the Future of Media and Aged Care were her two topics of choice.

The notion of who creates, curates, disseminates and comments on news was our main theme, as was a discussion on newspapers and their longevity.

My take on daily newspapers is that they will become increasingly irrelevant over the next few years and continue to lose readership and eventually disappear as people see that the news they sell is out of date before its even printed.

Weekend newspapers however will fare better, as people see their weekend read as an oasis on their days off, one that allows them to unwind and catch up with the world.

We also turned our attention to Aged Care in the Future (the reason for my visit to the Gold Coast was to deliver a keynote on the Future of the Aged Care Industry) and the question of how we are going to find the number of carers we will soon need in this industry given our aging population and will robots and technology including magic carpets be part of the solution.

In the 60’s we got together held hands, physically touched each other, shared and sung kumbuya. Now we digitally gather, virtually hold hands, poke each other and audition online for youtube stardom.

In this month’s Futurevation webinar we went exploring down the road of collaboration, peer-to-peer and co creation to find out we’re not alone, that there are others out there and that collectively we are more purposeful than we may be on our own.

We stopped along the way to peer into the digital store-front of a myriad of websites and apps that are beginning to show and sell these new business paradigms and thinking; one in which control is banished in favour of management, where ownership is unnecessary as long as we can share resources and where we can outsource innovation to a group of virtual strangers.

Take a look and listen at this month’s webinar and as always please share your thoughts on what you see ahead.

At next months FREE webinar on Monday 8th April @ 1.00 p.m. AEST we will take a look at printing hearts, homes, cars, clothes, records and food and the rise and rise of robots and what we can expect of them over the next decade or two.

In 1436 Gutenberg was accused of inventing an object that would eventually turn our brains into porridge – the good old printing press. The same accusation a made of radio, television, video and the cinema.

It seems that whenever we innovate or invent our communication tools many people see it as a step too far and the end of civilization as we know it.

Today is no different as we trade in and trade up our communication tools and shift many of them online. One of the fundamental shifts is that we have democratized information and news and moved it into the hands of the individual.

It is now possible to source and proffer news in an endless list of niche subjects. It is possible to have a first hand view of the world’s major and minor moments, presented not by a corporate spokesperson, but rather an individual that happens to be walking by with their mobile phone.

I love these two shots of the new Pope’s announcement, the first is Pope Benedict XVI’s in April 2005 and the second is Pope Francis earlier this year.

Take a look at both and spot the difference. In Pope Benedict XVI’s there are very few mobile phones recording the ceremony, but in Pope Francis’s announcement the crowd is full of smart phones recording and sharing the news in real-time.

The Future of the Media is this week’s chat between David Dowsett of ABC radio Wide Bay and I as we ask are newspapers dead, is printed news a dinosaur, what constitutes news, who creates it, who communicates it and what do people expect and want from news and information sources.

With Fairfax taking The Age to a smaller more compact size toady, they don’t like you calling it tabloid, it prompted Belinda King of Radio ABC Tasmania to ask the question What is the future of newspapers and the media?

We chatted about the notion that the core of what people want is information, knowledge and wisdom and that 100’s of years ago the rise in literacy moved us from receiving this orally from the church pulpit and travelers to reading about it in newspapers.

Today we still want to “know”, but our habits and technology are different.

We want to be a part of the news, we want to know immediately something has happened and see it first hand and even report and comment on ourselves.

The static one-way communication that newspapers of old delivered their insights doesn’t offer this, but digital can.

So really the question becomes how do we re-purpose our news gathering and disseminating infrastructure to better deliver on customer expectations – an innovation opportunity every industry is coming to terms with.

Have a listen now and then make the news yourself and share how you see the future of media.

Up to this morning’s interview with Celine Foenander on ABC Local I would have said nothing, but one of the recurring questions I get asked around digital wallets is how secure they are?

The answer is very secure, because it’s in the interest of the banks and credit card providers to make it as secure as possible, but of course as secure as they make it, there will always be someone who will try to outsmart them, just like Ned Kelly and Al Capone.

We soon turned our attention to the digital wallet future; migrating our physical cards, licences, passports, airline tickets and other stuff on to our mobile phones;what and how we will use this new technology for in the very near future and whether physical cash is becoming extinct.

Another plus with this interview is that Celine thinks I’m funny, not strange funny, but ha ha funny – go figure!

Anyway, have a listen and let me know your thoughts on digital wallets, less cash society’s and whether you think you think you’ll use it or not.